Training Visual Memory

Morning Walk, Fence Line

(painted from memory)

One of the key ingredients of the Drawing/Painting Program of The Landscape Atelier is the training of visual memory. Many years ago, I embarked on a journey to find a way to use memory in my own work. Over time, I developed some techniques and strategies which helped me retain visual information. As a result, I became comfortable working from both memory and imagination.
When I started The Landscape Atelier in 2014 I knew I wanted to make memory training part of the curriculum. Last month I gave a paper at the TRAC 2015 conference entitled The Training and Use of Visual Memory for Representational Landscape Painters which describes why memory training is important, the literature and history of memory training, the method we use in the Atelier, and the results we obtained over the first year using these methods.

My paper is now available to read online. Here's the link. This will take you to a page on my website. Then just click on the title of the article.

http://www.deborahparis.com/Asset.asp?AssetID=42291&AKey=LCEK6WCL

Upcoming show- Albuquerque Museum Miniatures & More

Evening Pond

10 x 12

Available at Albuquerque Museum Miniatures & More

I am happy to say that I will have three paintings in the Albuquerque Museum Miniatures & More exhibition and sale this year. The Gala will be held on October 26, 2013,  and the paintings will be sold by fixed price draw.

This is another painting based on a pond near my home and studio and painted from observation and memory.

How Can You Become a Poet?

REPLY TO THE QUESTION: “HOW CAN YOU BECOME A POET?”

take the leaf of a tree
trace its exact shape
the outside edges
and inner lines

memorize the way it is fastened to the twig
(and how the twig arches from the branch)
how it springs forth in April
how it is panoplied in July

by late August
crumple it in your hand
so that you smell its end-of-summer sadness

chew its woody stem

listen to its autumn rattle

watch it as it atomizes in the November air

then in winter
when there is no leaf left

invent one

~ Eve Merriam (1916-1992), American poet and playwright